The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry

Trump’s apocalyptic threats demand a moral case for disarmament,Guardian, Daniel José Camacho, 14 Aug 16, It’s easy to understand why Trump is potentially one of the worst people to be in charge of our nation’s nuclear codes. Yet, the problem runs much deeper.

Martin Luther King Jr once said: “When scientific power outruns moral power, we end up with guided missiles and misguided men.” Now, it appears Donald Trump might be the man who makes us pay for our country’s moral gap.

Trump has rekindled fears of war and nuclear strikes by threatening North Korea, saying: “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.” True to form, Trump’s words flew out of his mouth without much thought or preparation. In turn, the North Korean government has threatened to fire missiles near the US territory of Guam.

It’s easy to understand why Trump is potentially one of the worst people to be in charge of our nation’s nuclear codes. Yet the problem runs much deeper. Trump’s apocalyptic threat is a reminder that we need to revive the moral argument for disarmament and against militarism.

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then the road to this moment has been paved with the consensus of the foreign policy establishment. Both neocons and hawkish Democrats have pushed for an aggressive posture that has US special operations forces operating in 137 countries. US defense spending consistentlydwarfs the rest of the world.

King also said: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” Based on our record, it looks like this nation has been beyond spiritually dead for some time.

Before Trump, the Obama administration brokered more weapons sales than any other administration since the second world war. Although Hillary Clinton campaigned on strong gun control, the state department under her leadership exhibited little restraint when it came to selling arms……

King was someone who acutely understood the danger of American militarism and nuclear weapons. In his 1967 Christmas Sermon on Peace, he said: “If somebody doesn’t bring an end to this suicidal thrust that we see in the world today, none of us are going to be around, because somebody’s going to make the mistake through our senseless blundering of dropping a nuclear bomb somewhere.”

Recovering King’s political vision can help us today…….

As long as war remains a business profiting a few, peace will remain a low priority. The problem is not simply Trump or the preceding presidential administrations, but an entire system that profits from violent conflicts and war.

The former president Dwight D Eisenhower understood this when he described the grave implications of the “military-industrial complex” in his 1961 farewell address. According to him: “The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – [of an immense military establishment and arms industry] is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the federal government.”…..

Korean leaders, US open door to diplomacy in nuclear crisis, Yahoo News, The Canadian Press, August 16, 2017 SEOUL, Korea, Republic Of — North Korea’s military on Tuesday presented leader Kim Jong Un with plans to launch missiles into waters near Guam and “wring the windpipes of the Yankees,” even as both Koreas and the United States signalled their willingness to avert a deepening crisis, with each suggesting a path toward negotiations.

The tentative interest in diplomacy follows unusually combative threats between President Donald Trump and North Korea amid worries Pyongyang is nearing its long-sought goal of being able to send a nuclear missile to the U.S. mainland. Next week’s start of U.S.-South Korean military exercises that enrage the North each year could make diplomacy even more difficult.

During an inspection of the North Korean army’s Strategic Forces, which handles the missile program, Kim praised the military for drawing up a “close and careful plan” and said he would watch the “foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees” a little more before deciding whether to order the missile test, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said. Kim appeared in photos sitting at a table with a large map marked by a straight line between what appeared to be northeastern North Korea and Guam, and passing over Japan — apparently showing the missiles’ flight route.

The missile plans were previously announced. Kim said North Korea would conduct the launches if the “Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions on the Korean Peninsula and its vicinity,” warning the United States to “think reasonably and judge properly” to avoid shaming itself, the news agency said.

The Trump administration had no immediate comments on Kim’s declaration……..

Kim’s conditional tone, however, hinted the friction could ease if the U.S. offered a gesture that Pyongyang sees as a step back from “extremely dangerous reckless actions.”

That could refer to the U.S.-South Korean military drills set to begin Aug. 21, which the North claims are rehearsals for invasion. It also could mean the B-1B bombers that the U.S. occasionally flies over the Korean Peninsula as a show of force…….

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, meanwhile, a liberal who favours diplomacy, urged North Korea to stop provocations and to commit to talks over its nuclear weapons program……..

North Korea’s military said last week it would finalize the plan to fire four ballistic missiles near Guam, which is about 3,200 kilometres (2,000 miles) from Pyongyang. It would be a test of the Hwasong-12, a new missile the country flight-tested for the first time in May. The liquid-fuel missile is designed to be fired from road mobile launchers and has been described by North Korea as built for attacking Alaska and Hawaii. https://ca.ne

The Axis of Climate Evil, NYT, Paul KrugmanAUG. 11, 2017, “It’s Not Your Imagination: Summers Are Getting Hotter.” So read a recent headline in The Times, highlighting a decade-by-decade statistical analysis by climate expert James Hansen. “Most summers,” the analysis concluded, “are now either hot or extremely hot compared with the mid-20th century.”

So what else is new? At this point the evidence for human-caused global warming just keeps getting more overwhelming, and the plausible scenariosfor the future — extreme weather events, rising sea levels, drought, and more — just keep getting scarier.

In a rational world urgent action to limit climate change would be the overwhelming policy priority for governments everywhere.

But the U.S. government is, of course, now controlled by a party within which climate denial — rejecting not just scientific evidence but also obvious lived experience, and fiercely opposing any effort to slow the trend — has become a defining marker of tribal identity……. the G.O.P. is completely united behind its project of destroying civilization, and it’s making good progress toward that goal…..

What becomes clear to anyone following the climate debate, however, is that hardly any climate skeptics are in fact trying to get at the truth. I’m not a climate scientist, but I do know what bogus arguments look like — and I can’t think of a single prominent climate skeptic who isn’t obviously arguing in bad faith……

there are actually three groups involved — a sort of axis of climate evil.

First, and most obvious, there’s the fossil fuel industry — think the Koch brothers — which has an obvious financial stake in continuing to sell dirty energy. And the industry — following the same well-worn path industry groups used to create doubt about the dangers of tobacco, acid rain, the ozone hole, and more — has systematically showered money on think tanks and scientists willing to express skepticism about climate change. Many — perhaps even most — authors purporting to cast doubt on global warming turn out, on investigation, to have received financial support from the fossil fuel sector.

Still, the mercenary interests of fossil fuel companies aren’t the whole story here. There’s also ideology.

An influential part of the U.S. political spectrum — think the Wall Street Journal editorial page — is opposed to any and all forms of government economic regulation; it’s committed to Reagan’s doctrine that government is always the problem, never the solution……

Finally, there are a few public intellectuals — less important than the plutocrats and ideologues, but if you ask me even more shameful — who adopt a pose of climate skepticism out of sheer ego. In effect, they say: “Look at me! I’m smart! I’m contrarian! I’ll show you how clever I am by denying the scientific consensus!” And for the sake of this posturing, they’re willing to nudge us further down the road to catastrophe……

The Real Nuclear Option, Americans are disturbingly unbothered by the idea of striking first with nuclear weapons, Slate ,By Fred Kaplan, 15 Aug 17, As President Trump rails against North Korea, threatening to rain down “fire and fury like the world has never seen” if it so much as tests another long-range missile, the world can’t help but wonder: Would he really do this? Would he order a nuclear strike, the ultimate fire and fury, against a country that hadn’t attacked us first?

Many are doubtful. His top security advisers would oppose such a move. So would the American people who, though they have no formal say in the matter, would impose constraints on a president’s actions—or so goes the conventional wisdom. Some scholars have written of a “nuclear taboo” ingrained in our sensibilities since the bombing of Hiroshima. Others detect a growing revulsion against the killing of noncombatants even with conventional weapons.

However, a new study suggests that these comforting notions are mistaken.

In the latest issue of the journal International Security, Scott Sagan and Benjamin Valentino, respectively professors at Stanford University and Dartmouth College, conclude that the American public is “unlikely to serve as a serious constraint on any president who might consider using nuclear weapons in the crucible of war.” In fact, under pressures similar to those facing President Harry Truman at the end of World War II, a clear majority of the public would support the first use of nuclear weapons now, just as it did back then.

Some opinion polls appear at first glance to show otherwise. A majority of Americans now say that Truman was wrong to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But Sagan and Valentino regard those polls as “a misleading guide” to understanding Americans’ “real views” on the use of nuclear weapons and the killing of civilians.

The problem with the Hiroshima polls is that Americans today lack the mindset of Americans in the time of World War II. Japan is now a leading U.S. ally. Few among the living remember the shock of Pearl Harbor or the horrors of the war in the Pacific and the desperate desire to stop the slaughter of American troops by any means necessary. So, the two professors—Sagan an eminent scholar of nuclear strategy, Valentino an expert on public opinion and the use of force—came up with a clever way of gauging how Americans would react in a similar situation today.

They commissioned the polling firm YouGov to conduct a survey in which those polled were shown a mock news story. In this story, the United States imposes sanctions on Iran for violating the Iran nuclear deal. Iran then attacks an American aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf, killing 2,403 U.S. military personnel (the same number as those killed at Pearl Harbor, though this parallel isn’t drawn explicitly). The U.S. responds with airstrikes on Iranian military facilities. Iran refuses to surrender. The U.S. invades Iran but gets bogged down after 10,000 American troops are killed.

Those polled were then given a choice. Should we persist with the ground invasion all the way to Tehran, knowing that 20,000 American soldiers would be killed? Or should we drop a nuclear bomb on Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city, “to pressure the Iranian government to surrender”—an attack that would kill 100,000 Iranian civilians (an arbitrarily chosen number).

The results were unsettling, though not so surprising. More than half of the respondents, 55 percent, favored dropping a nuclear bomb rather than proceeding with the invasion. An even higher number, 59 percent, said they would approve the president’s action after the fact if he chose to drop the bomb.

Then the pollster changed one key premise: What if the nuking of Mashhad killed 2 million Iranian citizens—which would you prefer: dropping the nuclear bomb or proceeding with the ground invasion, which would kill 20,000 U.S. soldiers?

Those favoring the nuclear option did drop, but not by much—from 55 percent (under the scenario with 100,000 killed) to 47 percent (under the scenario with 2 million killed). More sobering, the same number as before—59 percent—said they would approve the president’s action, after the fact, if he decided to drop the bomb.

China urges all sides to put out fire, not add to flames, in North Korea standoff, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-china-idUSKCN1AV0N5?il=0, Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Writing by Philip Wen; Editing by Nick Macfie, BEIJING (Reuters) AUGUST 15, 2017– China on Tuesday reiterated calls for restraint on the Korean peninsula, saying it hoped all sides could put out the flames, not add oil to the fire, with their words and actions.

Speaking at a daily press briefing in Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying urged a peaceful resolution of the standoff.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has delayed a decision on firing missiles towards Guam while he waits to see what the United States does next, the North’s state media said on Tuesday, as South Korea’s president said Seoul would seek to prevent war by all means.

Iran could quit nuclear deal in ‘hours’ if new U.S. sanctions imposed: Rouhani, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear-rouhani-idUSKCN1AV0LWDUBAI (Reuters), 14 Aug 17 – Iran could abandon its nuclear agreement with world powers “within hours” if the United States imposes any more new sanctions, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday.“If America wants to go back to the experience (of imposing sanctions), Iran would certainly return in a short time — not a week or a month but within hours — to conditions more advanced than before the start of negotiations,” Rouhani told a session of parliament broadcast live on state television.

Iran says new sanctions that the United States has imposed on it breach the agreement it reached in 2015 with the United States, Russia, China and three European powers in which it agreed to curb its nuclear work in return for the lifting of most sanctions.

The U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on six Iranian firms in late July for their role in the development of a ballistic missile program after Tehran launched a rocket capable of putting a satellite into orbit.

In early August, U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law new sanctions on Iran, Russia and North Korea passed by the U.S. Congress. The sanctions in that bill also target Iran’s missile programs as well as human rights abuses.

The United States imposed unilateral sanctions after saying Iran’s ballistic missile tests violated a U.N. resolution, which endorsed the nuclear deal and called upon Tehran not to undertake activities related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such technology.

It stopped short of explicitly barring such activity.

Iran denies its missile development breaches the resolution, saying its missiles are not designed to carry nuclear weapons.

“The world has clearly seen that under Trump, America has ignored international agreements and, in addition to undermining the (nuclear deal), has broken its word on the Paris agreement and the Cuba accord…and that the United States is not a good partner or a reliable negotiator,” Rouhani said.

Trump said last week he did not believe that Iran was living up to the spirit of the nuclear deal.

President Trump holds the ‘nuclear football’ but what is the process to launch an attack? 9 News, Aug 15, 2017 On January 20 Donald Trump was inaugurated as President, giving the former reality star the sole authority to launch a nuclear attack.

After being sworn in, an aide who had arrived with outgoing president Barack Obama carrying a satchel containing a briefcase, known as “the nuclear football”, moved quietly to Trump’s side.

The symbolism was clear: Trump now had complete control of the launch codes for a strategic nuclear strike.

It was a moment Trump had been waiting for – indeed, even thinking about for a long time……..

And it seems not all US politicians have confidence in the current system.

Ted Lieu – a Democratic member of the US House of Representatives – has filed a proposal to require congressional approval before the president could launch a first nuclear strike, labelling the current process “unconstitutional”.

“Right now one person can launch thousands of nuclear weapons, and that’s the president. No one can stop him. Under the law, the secretary of defense has to follow his order. There’s no judicial oversight, no congressional oversight,” Lieu said.

But what exactly is the current process to launch a nuclear attack? The current approval process dates back to after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan to end World War II.

The Atomic Energy Act of 1946, signed by President Harry Truman, gave the president full responsibility over the nation’s nuclear arsenal.

That means, the president can use nuclear weapons with a single verbal order – an order that cannot be overridden.

Unlike other executive branch decisions, there are very limited checks and balances to launching a nuclear strike.

While Lie argues the current process is unconstitutional, the answer to that is not definitive – with possible answers lying in murky territory.

The American Constitution allows the president to use significant military force without congressional approval, if it is in self-defence.

The Korean War which ran from 1950 to 1953 did not ever formally end – rather it ended with an armistice, with a peace treaty scheduled in Geneva in 1954 never being signed by the two parties.

Therefore, Trump could still attack North Korea first using the argument the US is already at war with the despot regime.While Trump may be able to launch a nuclear strike against North Korea on his say alone, the 1973 War Powers Resolution requires the president to have or to gain congressional approval to send troops to a foreign territory for combat purposes.

9RAW: Trump threatens ‘big, big trouble’ for North Korea

While the president can send the troops without the approval of Congress, the president then requires to get a yes otherwise they must terminate combat within 60 to 90 days.

While the Western world watch the continued exchange of verbal blows between North Korea and the US – a comment made by Trump in 1984, at the height of the Cold War, when the now President told a Washington Post reporter he wanted to be put in charge of US-Russia nuclear arms negotiations.

“It would take an hour-and-a-half to learn everything there is to learn about missiles,” Trump said. “I think I know most of it anyway.”

In March last year, Trump asserted he would be the last person to use nuclear.

“I’m not going to take cards off the table. We have nuclear capability,” he said.

“The last person to use nuclear would be Donald Trump. That’s the way I feel. I think it is a horrible thing. The thought of it is horrible. But I don’t want to take anything off the table. We have to negotiate. There will be times maybe when we’re going to be in a very deep, very difficult, very horrible negotiation.”

It’s a negotiation the world is watching now as North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un continues to move ahead with a plan to strike an area around US territory Guam with four missiles.

August 15 could see North Korea begin preparations to launch four intermediate-range Hwasong-12 missiles near Guam, should Kim follow through on his rhetoric.

The rogue state’s head said today he will watch the actions of the United States for a while longer before making a decision, according to North Korea’s official news agency.

Kim said: “The United States, which was the first to bring numerous strategic nuclear equipment near us, should first make the right decision and show through actions if they wish to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula and prevent a dangerous military clash.”The ball seems to be sitting firmly in Trump’s court – and the world watches to see if he becomes the president to open the ‘nuclear football’.http://www.9news.com.au/world/2017/08/15/13/17/trump-north-korea-nuclear-codes

The Madhouse Effect: this is how climate denial in Australia and the US compares, The Conversation August 14, 2017 Michael Mann is well known for his classic “hockey stick” work on global warming, for the attacks he has long endured from climate denialists, and for the good fight of communicating the environmental and political realities of climate change.

Mann’s work, including his recent book The Madhouse Effect, has helped me, as a dual US-Australian citizen, think about the similarities and differences between the US and Australia as we respond to what has been called the climate change denial machine.

In both countries, the denialists and distortionists have undermined public knowledge, public policy, new economic development opportunities, and the very value of the environment. Climate policy is being built upon alternative facts, fake news, outright lies, PR spin and industry-written talking points.

How we can expose and counter this denialist machine? To partly lay out the task, I will discuss three points of contrast between the US and Australia.

Political culture

There is a key difference between the two countries’ political cultures. As much as the denialists have determined Australian energy and climate policy, they have not been as successful, yet, at undermining deep-seeded respect in Australian culture for the common good, for science, for expertise and knowledge…….

Last year, when the government fired climate scientists at CSIRO, there was another huge public backlash. The government had to step back a bit, both on the actual science to be done and the radical agenda change away from science for the public good.

And again, when the government wanted to support the dubious work of Bjorn Lomborg, that caused an outcry from both the university sector and the public. Even though the government wound up paying more than A$600,000 on what The Australian called his “vanity book project”, they couldn’t import him and plant him at any Australian university.

As Mann says, the main issue in implementing good, sound climate policy is no longer simply the science. The main issue is the cultural understanding of, and respect for the role of science in informing political decisions.

The power of the carbon industry

The problem in Australia is less a culture turning against the Enlightenment, and more the direct political power and influence of the carbon industry. ……

even here I think there is some hope. We have seen, over the last few years, an incredible coalition grow – one focused on the end of carbon mining, on protecting communities, on creating real jobs, and on supporting renewables.

Once-unthinkable coalitions of farmers and Aboriginal communities are fighting new mines, new attacks on sacred and fertile land and water.

After failure of SC nuke plant, backers seek federal aid, By MATTHEW DALY, 14 Aug 17, WASHINGTON (AP) — Proponents of nuclear power are pushing to revive a failed project to build two reactors in South Carolina, arguing that the demise of the $14 billion venture could signal doom for an industry that supplies one-fifth of the nation’s electricity…..Supporters were alarmed when two South Carolina utilities halted construction on a pair of reactors that once were projected to usher in a new generation of nuclear power……

The July 31 suspension of the partly completed V.C. Summer project near Columbia, South Carolina, leaves two nuclear reactors under construction in Georgia as the only ones being built in the U.S. The collapse of the nearly decade-old project in South Carolina could cost ratepayers billions of dollars for work that ultimately provides no electricity and could signal that new nuclear plants are impossible to complete in the United States.

“These reactors failing would be the end of a nuclear renaissance before it even started,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

Graham and other lawmakers from both parties are urging Congress to extend a production tax credit that would provide billions of dollars to the South Carolina project and the two Georgia reactors. The House approved an extension in June, and Graham is pushing for a Senate vote after Congress returns from its August recess….

The Vogtle plant in Georgia faces similar economic and competitive threats, including the Westinghouse bankruptcy. The plant’s operator, Atlanta-based Southern Co., has said it will decide in coming weeks whether to finish the two reactors, which are years behind schedule and billions of dollars above projected costs……

Besides the production tax credit, nuclear supporters want the extension of an Energy Department loan guarantee program that has helped Vogtle and other energy projects secure funding. Vogtle received an $8.3 billion loan guarantee under the Obama administration – the largest ever issued by the loan program and a deal that some critics say could end up biting taxpayers…..https://www.apnews.com/1746c2dee6464b1586dbbedda6714bc4

Questions remain about viability of building new nuclear reactors, Augusta Chronicle, Tom Corwin, August 12, 2017,Five years ago, a study from the Union of Concerned Scientists correctly predicted a nuclear expansion at Plant Vogtle would be delayed and over budget. While Georgia Power puts together its estimate of final costs and schedule for the project, and whether to proceed on it, it is an open question whether the long-term benefits of building new nuclear reactors in the U.S. will be worth the growing cost.

The challenge to building new nuclear reactors in the U.S. has to do with new technology, the exacting construction and the relative affordability of other energy sources, experts said. While there could be long-term advantages to new nuclear energy, including its relative efficiency and lack of greenhouse gas emissions, the short-term costs are considerable and could sink the projects before they are completed, experts said.

The recently suspended nuclear expansion at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in South Carolina over its burgeoning costs has raised questions about the future of Vogtle’s two new nuclear reactors and other projects……

Capital costs could increase from $5.7 billion to $7.4 billion and financing costs from $2.3 billion to $3.5 billion. Because Georgia Power has the only publicly reported numbers attached to the project, some have used those figures to calculate the total cost at $25 billion, but it cautioned against that figure because the costs for the other companies involved in the project are different.

If the costs came in at the highest estimate and were the same across the board for all partners, the project would actually exceed $27 billion…….

One way of assessing whether adding a new nuclear plant makes economic sense is by looking at measures that seek to compare energy technologies based on what it costs to build and operate them, called levelized cost of electricty, and comparing it with the value of the electricity it would add to the overall system based on the cost of producing it. According to a report earlier this year from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, a nuclear reactor that came online in 2022 would actually cost nearly $40 more in kilowatt hour of electricity produced than generating that same electricity by other means……… http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/2017-08-12/questions-remain-about-viability-building-new-nuclear-reactors#.WZDB9dbWk2A.twitter

Editorial.Phasing out nuclear power a must for Japan’s new energy plan, Asahi Shimbun, August 14, 2017, The industry ministry has opened discussions for reviewing Japan’s Strategic Energy Plan, which defines a grand framework for how the country will consume, and cover the demand for, electric power, heat and other forms of energy.

Industry minister Hiroshige Seko has said the core part of the plan will remain basically unchanged. Minor adjustments alone, however, would simply not suffice under current circumstances.

The ongoing edition of the plan is questionable in many respects, including in the way it defines nuclear energy as a mainstay power source despite broad public opposition to restarts of nuclear reactors.

A big wave of change is occurring on a global scale. For example, there are moves, mostly in advanced industrialized nations, for pulling the plug on nuclear power. There is also a trend for moving from coal-fired thermal power generation, given that the Paris Agreement has now taken effect for fighting global warming. Renewable energy options, such as wind and solar power, are spreading rapidly.

Japan should also redraw the image of its future self. First and foremost, a phase-out of nuclear power should define the foundation of the country’s new future perspective…….

nuclear energy is falling out of favor with the times both in Japan and abroad following the Fukushima disaster. For example, the public has grown more skeptical about the use of nuclear power, and the costs of implementing required safety measures have soared.

The question of how to dispose of radioactive waste from nuclear power reactors remains unlikely to be solved any time soon in most of the countries that have such reactors, including Japan. Efforts are spreading, mostly in advanced nations, for seeking to scrap all, or a considerable part, of a national fleet of nuclear reactors.

The forthcoming edition of Japan’s Strategic Energy Plan should no longer define atomic energy as a mainstay source of power. Minimizing dependency on nuclear power should be designated a priority issue instead of being left as a hollow promise. Discussions should be made on what efforts are necessary for achieving that goal, and a road map should be presented in a concrete manner.

PHASE OUT NUCLEAR, FIGHT GLOBAL WARMING

Intensive power-saving efforts, combined with a substantial growth in renewable energy options, will represent a solution to the question of how to phase out nuclear power and fight global warming at the same time. It has been pointed out that such measures are costly and have other disadvantages, but possibilities have been opening up for them in recent years………

Renewable energy sources have already replaced thermal energy and nuclear energy as the leading destinations of global investments into the electric power sector.

Trump to reverse Obama-era order aimed at planning for climate change, WP, By Darryl Fears and Steven MufsonAugust 15 President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that he said would streamline the approval process for building infrastructure such as roads, bridges and offices by eliminating a planning step related to climate change and flood dangers……

The White House confirmed that the order issued Tuesday would revoke an earlier executive order by former President Barack Obama that required recipients of federal funds to strongly consider risk-management standards when building in flood zones, including measures such as elevating structures from the reach of rising water. Obama’s Federal Flood Risk Management Standard, established in 2015, sought to mitigate the risk of flood damage charged to taxpayers when property owners file costly claims.

Energy Transition 11th Aug 2017, Since the 1950s, the Euratom Treaty has encouraged large investments into
nuclear energy projects and funding for nuclear research. In all this time,
the treaty was never revised to suit present-day demands.

The trend towards cheaper renewable energy is ignored, while millions of euros that go
towards nuclear research are legitimated. Cordula Büsch takes a look at
why the Euratom treaty needs to be reformed, if not abolished.

Theresa May has explicitly mentioned in her letter to the EU Council which officially
triggered article 50 in March that the UK will leave the Euratom treaty,
despite Euratom membership not being connected to EU membership.

Perhaps this can be taken as an opportunity, a wake-up call, to finally discuss the
dissolving of Euratom altogether. Just like the Brexit negotiations, this
will bear many challenges and open questions, such as the future of the
long-term ITER project to build a fusion reactor. In 2012-2013 Euratom
funded the ITER project with the substantial amount of EUR 2.2 billion.

Nonetheless, it should be a necessity to discuss the future of Euratom,
especially now at a time when demands to reform the EU are voiced by the
remaining 27 members. The current trend shows that more European countries
are thriving to shut down their nuclear power plants. There are also more
countries without nuclear power plants among the EU27 than those keeping up
their support of nuclear energy.

With Belgium and Germany joining the group
of countries without nuclear power plants within the next 8 years, this
group will entail 15 member states. The support for nuclear energy is
steadily shrinking and with the UK, a nuclear power nation is soon leaving
the EU, which changes proportionalities within the union. Even France has
issued the Energy Transition for Green Growth bill preparing to cut down
nuclear energy to 50% by 2025.

Shut Down Sizewell 13th Aug 2017, It might seem strange for us to focus on Hinkley Point in Somerset for our
front page story, but what happens at Hinkley will almost certainly have a
direct impact on what happens at the nuclear power station at Sizewell in
Suffolk in the years to come.

This Campaign has always maintained that a new generation of nuclear power stations in the UK, including the proposed
Sizewell C, is completely untenable and with all that is happening at
Hinkley Point, it now seems to be increasingly the case. The new nuclear
power station: Hinkley Point C, is now subject to a ‘full review’
following a statement from its developer Électricité de France (EdF) that
it expects the project to be years late and billions of Euros over budget.
The anticipated completion date has already been extended from 2025 to
2027, and the cost, shared with China State Nuclear Company (CGN), is
already likely to increase by up to 3bn Euros.

The latest forecasts reveal that Hinkley Point C could cost energy bill payers in the UK £50bn over
the life of the project, compared to the original estimate in 2013, of
£6bn. The National Audit Office in the UK has labelled the HInkley plans
as ‘risky and expensive’ and it has urged the Government to have an
alternative plan in place in case the project is delayed or cancelled.

This at a time when offshore wind power will be up to 50% cheaper than nuclear,
and certainly far safer and far better for the environment. Technological
advances, including larger more efficient turbines and economies of scale
in manufacturing, have resulted in the cost of offshore wind power tumbling
to an all-time low. It is anticipated that the guaranteed price is expected
to be so low, that it could be free of subsidy altogether. Millions are now
being invested in battery power, which is making wind and solar energy
storage a reality across the world. Technological advances have resulted in
production being doubled in Western Europe, paving the way for a green
energy revolution that will consign nuclear power to the economic and
environmental scrapheap. http://www.shutdown-sizewell.org.uk/how-the-failures-at-hinkley-c-may-impact-on-the-plans-for-sizewell-c/

Climate change projected to significantly increase harmful algal blooms in US freshwaters, Phys Org, August 15, 2017,Harmful algal blooms known to pose risks to human and environmental health in large freshwater reservoirs and lakes are projected to increase because of climate change, according to a team of researchers led by a Tufts University scientist. The team developed a modeling framework that predicts that the largest increase in cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (CyanoHABs) would occur in the Northeast region of the United States, but the biggest economic harm would be felt by recreation areas in the Southeast.

The research, which is published in print today in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, is part of larger, ongoing efforts among scientists to quantify and monetize the degree to which climate change will impact and damage various U.S. sectors…….

It has been estimated that lakes and reservoirs serving as drinking water sources for 30 million to 48 million Americans may be contaminated periodically by algal toxins. Researchers cited an example in 2014, when nearly 500,000 residents of Toledo, Ohio, lost access to drinking water after water drawn from Lake Erie revealed the presence of cyanotoxins……..https://phys.org/news/2017-08-climate-significantly-algal-blooms-freshwaters.html